The proposed research represents a continuation and extension of a line of investigation that has been carried out under a grant from the Division of Nursing. The present study begins with the observation that medical-surgical nurses tend to devote relatively less attention to patients' psychological distress than to their physical pain. It is argued that this relative inattention is not a consequence of the nurse's insensitivity to or lack of concern with patients' psychological distress. Rather, it is a function of the way in which the hospital situation is structured and the lack of realistically useful methods for dealing with psychological distress. The proposed study is designed for medical-surgical units and involves three experimental interventions: (1) incorporating systematic measurement and recording of patients' moods into the nurse's routine evaluation of patients' "vital" signs; (2) training in Brief Interaction Care; (3) both measurement and recording of moods and training in Brief Interaction Care. The effects of these interventions will be measured in terms of: (1) the amount of attention nurses devote to patients' psychological distress; (2) the level of patients' psychological distress. Also proposed is a secondary study of patients' moods during the course of hospitalization in relation to age, sex, race, national background, nature and stage of illness or injury, and major diagnostic and treatment events.